


Stay Behind

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Brainwashing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, post 1.09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:21:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6431584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of 1.09 Left Behind, where Len didn't escape and Mick didn't remember who he was until it was very nearly too late. </p>
<p>Then one day, Mick Rory wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Unabashed id fic because why not. Not as dark as it COULD have been is probably its best description.

Mick wasn’t sure how long it took for him to snap out of the brainwashing the Time Masters had given him. Hell, he wasn’t sure how long they’d had him, or that he’d travelled, or any of it – time travel made everything weird. One minute he was sitting at the helm of the Waverider, keeping an eye on his current prisoners and tracking down the last remains of the so-called Legends crew that has slipped away (the ATOM suit could shrink beyond what he’d thought, or he’d never have overlooked the air filtration system); the next minute he’d set Gideon on autopilot and gone to throw up in his bedroom because he’d been sucker-punched by a whole flood of memories, feelings, emotions, instincts…everything that’d been forcefully suppressed through endless, endless indoctrination. 

Oddly enough, his first thought as he lay there, half sprawled out over the stupid futuristic toilet and still heaving, his memories all fitting back into place, was that if Kubrick wasn’t such a goddamn genius he’d be _seriously_ rethinking his fondness for A Clockwork Orange. 

Len would probably have found that thought funny. 

Just thinking about that made nausea roil through his stomach again; he’d always had a running commentary about Len in his head, even when the Time Masters had him at the Vanishing Point, but that thought was the first one in a long time (maybe?) that hadn’t been accompanied by an immediate counterpoint of incandescent fury and betrayal. His brain felt like it had two rabid weasels in it, the him life had created and the him the Time Masters had made, and the latter wasn’t taking being overthrown very easily.

It’d been cookies that’d done it, of all the stupid things. _Cookies_. Chocolate chip cookies. They’d been pretty shitty cookies, too; burnt on one side, undercooked on the other, and way, way too much chocolate because some people think that “more” is “better” when it comes to chocolate without adjusting the cooking time to account for the massive increase in melting liquid. 

His mom had made cookies like that.

The child psychologist they’d made him see after his family burned had said he was suffering from shock induced amnesia or some stupid blather like that, that he’d suppressed all thoughts and memories of his family in order to shield himself from the pain. Whatever the reason, Mick had moved on with his life; started over with a new life history that started after the fire, with no memory of what came before and no particular emotional reaction. The shrink had said it would come back eventually, but it never really had and it wasn’t like Mick had any use for his memories from years 0-10 so he didn’t really go searching. 

That was probably why the Time Masters hadn’t bothered to do anything with those memories – no triggers, no emotional backlash, nothing. Three cheers for laziness; it makes the world go ‘round. 

Mick sat up, rubbing at his aching head with both hands. Was nice, thinking of himself as “Mick” again. Fit better. His brain was still hazy, but it wasn’t the red haze of cold fury that had coated everything before. That really should have been the first hint that it wasn’t right; Len burned cold and Mick burned hot, that was the rule. Stupid Time Masters couldn’t even be bothered to get the gimmick right. 

So. Time to get his head on straight and figure out what’s going on. Preferably without turning into a murderous bounty hunter devoted to tracking down his last crew in revenge for being stranded.

Fuck it all, they turned him into a cliché. Now that’s just unforgivable. 

Mick shook his head to clear it. Yeah, he’s definitely still hazy. Right, so what had he been doing? Start at the Vanishing Point, go forward from there. He’d hunted the Legends crew through space and time and possibly hit himself with a car at one point. He’d finally cornered them in the ‘50s (terrible era – if he’d been stranded there instead of wherever-the-hell Len had left him, he would have probably turned serial killer in self-defense and then where would he be?) and then…something something, mumble mumble.

Goddamn brainwashing. He was getting his brain back, but there were still blank spots all over the place. Okay, let’s go backwards in time instead. He’d been throwing his guts up into a (still couldn’t get over how stupid it looked) toilet because he’d just broken through his brainwashing. He’d smelled cookies (awful, objectively shitty cookies like Mom used to make that he couldn’t stop eating because the crispy part tasted like charcoal and the soft part like playdoh and it was bizarrely addicting). He’d been sitting at the bridge, keeping an eye on his current prisoners and tracking down the last remains of the so-called –

Current prisoners. 

Oh, _crap_. 

He was pretty sure he’d shot Jax to disable him before he could link up with Stein; he’d put the kid in medical and then kept him under some heavy sedation (had he really written down “known weakness for roofies” on the kid’s files?) and due to their link, Stein was equally out of it. Ray had given Sara his suit so she could escape and rescue Kendra, so he was down in the brig with Rip (fucker) and the semi-comatose Stein. He’d caught them all, one by one, over the last few months – always nearly collecting the whole set only to suffer a setback, causing injury and damage where he could. 

They were all probably _real_ pissed off at him.

“Gideon, wake Jax up,” Mick ordered, climbing to his feet. “I want him clean as soon as possible without hurting him.”

“Understood, Kronos,” Gideon responded in that creepy mechanical voice. 

Mick winced. “Better make it ‘Mr. Rory’ again, Gideon.” He wasn’t handing over control back to Rip without first getting a chance to explain, but some things just had to go. Kronos. Kronos. He has a list of complaints for the Time Masters, brainwashing being right there at the top, but naming him after a guy who was best known for cutting off people’s balls and snacking on his kids was just insulting. 

He walked out of the bathroom and came to a dead stop as the gorge rose in his throat again. This time the nausea had nothing to do with his head.

Len was sitting on the ground near the entrance to the bridge, face still turned towards that room; he was curled up on himself like he expected a blow. The plate of cookies was scattered next to him. 

Mick remembered.

Mick remembered: he’d gotten bored and hungry tracking Sara and Kendra’s movements, so he’d ordered Len to go make him something to eat. He hadn’t specified what, but in a fit of spite, he’d ordered him not to use the fabricator so it would take longer. Len had gone to the kitchen obediently – he did that most of the time nowadays – and had come back with a plate of cookies, probably because Len had the cooking skills of a man brought up on prison food and the instructions for chocolate chip cookies was typically found on the side of an average bag of flour. Mick had smelled them, felt his brain seize up, and had pushed his way past Len, knocking the cookies to the floor. Len hadn’t followed him to the bathroom to see what was up; hadn’t used the opportunity to run off, either. Had just sat down on the ground and waited for Mick to come back, to punish him for his failures and to give him his next order.

Mick remembered: he’d caught Len after his first escape attempt, the one where he’d gotten out of unbreakable handcuffs by breaking himself instead. He’d been furious – not only had Len nearly gotten out of his grasp after he’d hunted him for so long, Len had hurt himself. Damaged himself. Len wasn’t allowed to do that. It was _his_ vengeance and he wasn’t letting Len out of it so easy.

Mick remembered: the instinctive flush of rage and hurt and bile that always swept in at every thought of Len didn’t mean that the old instincts were totally overridden. Len being hurt had always made him go nuts. Made him want to kill anyone who dared. Made him want check Len over and keep him somewhere safe. Made him want to wipe away any other hand on Len but his. He still wanted that, always wanted that, could never forget to want that, but, interpreted by his fury, the instinct had come out wrong. 

Mick remembered: flashes of beating Len into the floor, hands reaching out for all the softest spots that he could recall, the weak arm, the tender ticklish spot right above his knee. Len gritting his teeth and lashing back as well as he can, except between the two of them there’s a reason that Mick’s the muscle, so his efforts to resist are over nearly before they begin. Len was used to beatings, even from Mick though never so viciously, so he hadn’t started begging for him to stop until Mick’s hands had shifted from hitting to touching. Still violent, so it had taken a while for Len to figure out what Mick was on about. Len’s supposed to be the smart one, but somehow it always takes him by surprise when it comes from family. 

Mick remembered: Len had tried to reason with him, to order him, even to plead with him, but Mick hadn’t stopped for anything. Not that time, or the next, or the next. Mick had felt only savage joy at holding Len down for him, whispers of _liar-betrayer-abandoner_ floating in his head and coming out his mouth in ugly taunts, mostly centered around Len’s inability to make anyone he loved happy. Threats to that he could program Gideon to go back and find their wedding day; Lisa had been there, of course, laughing and wrinkling her nose at how gross her big brother was being. _I could kill her there_ , he’d said in Len’s ear with one hand wrapped around Len’s throat and Len’s one good hand scrabbling desperately at his fingers as he tried to breathe. _I’d tie her up, make her watch before I kill her; see what she thinks of that. She’d know it was your fault that it came out this way. Same as always. Lenny screws up and Lisa pays for it, isn’t that how it goes?_

Mick remembered: there hadn’t been one moment where it had happened, one break, where Len had just shut down and stopped being _Len_. Somewhere between that first escape attempt and the fifth, which could scarcely go by that name since Len had just opened the door to let Sara and Kendra out without making even the slightest effort to escape with them. He hadn’t said a word to them, just opened the door, shook his head when they’d implored him to leave with them, and then he’d just sat there and waited for Mick to catch him and hurt him, which he had. Mick had put a tracker circling his remaining hand and left the ice gun available, a not particularly subtle taunt that freedom was available at the price of losing everything. Of becoming totally useless; always Len’s greatest fear. The tracker wasn’t really necessary anymore; Len no longer tried to escape or free his friends or even fight back, just did whatever Mick told him to do. Mick had been curious, once, at what Len did when he was alone and unfettered, because that mad need to know everything about Len had never faded, but it seemed to mostly involve sleeping or staring blankly at walls. 

Mick remembered, and he wanted to be sick. 

He approached Len quietly, knowing that Len was tracking exactly where he was by the miniscule tightening of his shoulders as he came near even though Len didn’t move at all. Len was sporting his now customary ring of finger-shaped bruises around his neck and a black eye from when Mick had shoved his face into the main control panel the day before. Mick didn’t remember why, if there had ever been a reason. He’d always liked it rough, but he’d never been the type of guy to force someone, to hurt someone like that, before. He didn’t feel like he was one now. But the evidence was there, stamped in black and blue (and purple and green) all over Len’s face and his own memories, and the sick feeling in his gut reminded him that the Time Masters’ brainwashing was designed to use his own emotions against him, so maybe this had been there all along.

Christ, the last time Len looked like this, Mick had tried to murder his father. 

He brushed the scattered cookies aside and sits down, his Kronos armor – shit, he should have removed that – clunking loudly and causing Len to flinch at the noise. Or possibly at him. Hard to tell at this point. “Len?” he said cautiously. 

Len turned to look at him. For a half a second, Mick was encouraged by the fact that Len was looking at his face rather than at his shoulder or above his head, then he remembered that a few weeks ago he’d apparently threatened to rip out one of Len’s kidneys if he pulled any of the shit that he used to do with his dad on him. Len had always looked him in the face after that. Didn’t mean he was actually seeing anything. Certainly wasn’t saying anything. Len had gone quiet some time back, speaking only when ordered to and Mick-as-Kronos wasn’t the type to encourage chattiness unless it was to humiliate. 

What do you even say here? How do you even start? It wasn’t that Mick’d gotten any less upset about Len up and changing the game on him, abandoning him to save some crew he’d barely known for a few weeks on the basis on some stupid desire to save the world, but the balance of sins here was so far weighted on his side that Len’s had been washed out a dozen times over. 

What to say? 

“It wasn’t me”? It was. It was Mick’s face and Mick’s hands and Mick’s memories that did it, that made the last few months so brutal, even if the brainwashing had been the driver. 

“I’m sorry”? True, but useless. Who had that ever helped? He’d never had any respect for people who salvaged their own consciences with apologies that did nothing, and he wasn’t going to start joining up now.

“I never would have done it if it wasn’t for the brainwashing”? He’d like to say that. He’d really like to say that. But was it true? They’d had their share of fights, physical, verbal, emotional. He’d had daydreams of punching Len before, of seriously hurting him and making him finally shut up. Make him be the one who has to acknowledge Mick as the boss, the one who had to obey without questioning for once. Normal people didn’t do that. Normal people would have been disgusted by that. 

And he’d gotten what he wanted, hadn’t he? Time Masters’ orders were to focus on Rip, but he’d gone straight for Len and once he’d gotten his hands on his partner, he’d done everything he’d thought about in his darkest moments and far beyond. 

They sat in silence for a while as Mick wracked his brain for something to say. Nothing. Len was the talker of the two of them, the one who came up with some reason that they should put some fight behind them, and Len wasn’t talking.

The silence was unbearable. 

“Len,” he tried again, clearing his throat when it came out rough. “Len…”

He had nothing. He wasn’t Kronos, who was entirely self-contained and self-interested, who didn’t need anybody. He was Mick Rory, who needed people and who had issues the size of a football field and _who didn’t do that shit_ to people. He was the better version. 

“Len, say something to me,” he said, his voice almost begging. _Look at me_ , he thought wildly. _Look at me. You can tell, can’t you? You can tell the brainwashing’s been broken. You can tell that I’m not the same person who did all that to you. You_ see _me. Right?_

Len blinked, long and slow. He opened his mouth a little, then closed it; licked his lips. Thought about it. 

Mick waited on tetherhooks.

“I’m sorry,” Len said, and slid to his knees before Mick in a gesture of submission. 

Mick put a hand on the breastplate of his armor, right over where his heart was. He wasn’t aware that you could feel your heart crack open. Len, who knew him better than anyone else alive, couldn’t see the difference. 

“What’re you apologizing for?” he asked, aware that his hands were shaking. He wasn’t sure Len even knew.

Len shrugged and gestured at the cookies. With his _iced over stump_ , god. “They didn’t come out right. Had trouble mixing.” 

_Yeah, because you only have one hand._

“Shouldn’t that have melted and you started bleeding by now?” Mick asked. It was not a graceful change of subject, but he couldn’t look away. Len’s _hand_. No matter how good Len eventually got at planning out major heists, he was a born pickpocket and his hands were his finest tools. 

Len’s eyes flicker towards the ice gun, but he doesn’t answer. Mick, who’d regretted asking the second it came out of his mouth, decided not to question further. He didn’t want to know.

Len was still on his knees. 

He still couldn’t think of anything to say. Maybe there wasn’t anything to say. Maybe those bastards at the cops and courts had something right after all. Maybe the only thing he could do for his crimes was be punished. 

“I’m waking Jax up,” Mick said abruptly. “And letting the others out of the brig.”

Len watched him with the same caution that you’d turn on a bomb you’re defusing. One that abruptly stopped ticking and started making unexplained beeping noises. 

“I…” Mick started, then stopped. Oh, what the hell. Even if it was useless and pathetic, he still ought to say it. “I’m sorry, Len.”

He’d expected a number of reactions (anger? relief? homicide?), but the color draining out of Len’s face in absolute terror wasn’t one of them. 

“Len?” Mick said, alarmed. Len was physically shaking; all his defenses gone, even apathy and dissociation. This was fully fledged panic. “What is it?”

_Where’s the threat_ , he almost said, then remembered that the worst threat was him.

“What did you do?” Len whispered, having curled up on himself like a frightened child. 

“I…what?”

“You ain’t sorry for anything anymore.” Len said. “Not even when– or when you– and you said all that shit about Lisa– _what did you do_?”

“Nothing!” Mick cried out, realizing the problem. “I didn’t– I meant for everything. For everything up to now, I mean. I’m back, I’m me again. My head…the Time Masters did something to my head, Lenny.” 

He reached out for his partner, only for Len to flinch back away from him. For half a second the old feeling sweep kicked in – rage and hurt and _how dare he try to run from me, I’m the only good thing in his life and all he’s ever doing is try to run away_ – and then Mick jerked back to himself, feeling nothing but self-disgust. 

He dropped his hands to his lap, carefully away from both any weapon and from Len. “Shit, Lenny. I’m so sorry. I’ll go let the others out now; they can take care of me.” _Take care of you_. “You don’t need to worry ‘bout a thing.”

Len stared at him, eyes wide and the white showing around dilated pupils. He was still breathing hard from his panic, but his eyes seemed more alive than before, less glassy indifference. But Mick didn’t know if that meant there was something of his Len still in there, something he hadn’t burned to ash, or if that was just the blind hope of rescue. 

Mick licked his lips, which had gone dry. Soon, Gideon would tell him that Jax is awake and he would give the orders to turn the ship over. Not to Rip, though – maybe to Stein. 

Maybe to Len.

They’d kill him, of course. Too moral for anything nastier than that, but he’d clearly demonstrated himself to be an active and present threat. He could put on the helmet, make it easier for them. He doesn’t know what Len would prefer, though, if it would easier if he saw Mick die with his own eyes or if he’d prefer to avoid seeing it.

Either way, they didn’t have much time left. Mick could spend that time in useless recriminations, or equally useless apologies, or he could ask what he really wanted to know, what he’d been wondering ever since he’d remembered.

“Why’d you stay, the last time?” he asks. “Or kill me? You could have managed it. Why didn’t you?”

Len looks at him, his lips curling in a pathetic attempt at a weary smile. “How’s it go, Mick? ‘For better or for worse, in sickness and in health’?”

_What the_ hell?

Mick stared at him. “You’re not serious.”

Len shrugged. “I screwed that one up royally when I left you behind, and I ain’t making that mistake again. ‘sides, it seems fair you should get some of your own back. ”

“You’re an idiot,” Mick said flatly. “Worse than I was. There’s never any reason to stick around for _that_ , marriage vows or not. Family or not.”

“I know.” Len reached out with his good hand and slipped his fingers in with Mick’s. “How’d you come back?”

Relief hit Mick in the chest like a wave. “You believe me?”

Len smiled. It was beautiful, even marred by the bruises that still littered his face. “Yeah. You’re talking like you now.”

You see me.

“What gave it up?” Mick said, trying to fight the beaming grin off his face. Oh, this wasn’t over by a long shot – he had trust to earn back and he’d probably try to shoot himself next time Len flinched away from him out of pure guilt, and Len’s PTSD had probably gotten about a million times worse, but Len was there. He hadn’t managed to destroy him. “What’d I say?”

Len snorted. “You called me an idiot ‘stead of just implying it.”

Mick gaped and Len laughed. 

“Mr. Rory, Jax has awakened and is in the medical bay,” Gideon’s smooth voice interrupted.

Shaking his head and grumbling, Mick got up. He’d better go change first if he wanted them not to kill him, and if Len wanted him around – and he was starting to hope he did – he had good reason to stay alive.

“I knew you’d be back,” Len said softly behind him, causing Mick to freeze. “I knew it when you never did go and kill Lisa, even when you had the chance. That’s why I couldn’t let you go.”

"Yeah," Mick said roughly. "That's because you're a fucking _idiot._ "


End file.
